The day that I went on campus for my 2nd dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, back in July, the poincianas were in bloom.
I walked around taking pictures of them.
I haven’t done that much this year…
…just wandered around places…
…taking photos….
So many changes.
But the poincianas keep blooming…
It’s not too late to wish you a happy new year, even though the year is already more than two weeks old. Even though it feels much older, given all that has happened so far…personally, nationally, globally. So, Happy New Year!
I watched the last setting moon for 2020 from my roof, on the morning of December 31, 2020…
I watched the New Year’s fireworks from my roof, as I have now for many years. There were far fewer of them this year, as the Covid-19 restrictions included a curfew from 10pm, a ban on parties and a limit to the size of gatherings…
I watched the first sunrise of 2021 later that morning…
This time last year there was no way I could have imagined how much life would have changed in the coming year, the changes brought by the pandemic being the most notable and unpredictable. Sitting here now, I am very aware that I haven’t a clue what things will be like a year from now. That is essentially the case each year, but the reality of 2020 has brought that into stark focus.
I remember a speech at the college graduation of one of my children years ago, in which the speaker said that the two most important qualities we could wish for our children in the times they were living in were adaptability and resilience. So true. And for us all. May the qualities of adaptabilty and resilience be yours in the coming year and the years beyond!
This banana tree has taken its time in bearing, but now that it has…
…what a lovely bunch of green bananas!
I took these photos early one morning, when overnight rain was still on the leaves and the fruit…
…sun-kissed green banana!
For mornings such as this…
…when Tropical Storm Zeta in the western Caribbean Sea…
…streams rainclouds across the sky, blocking the morning sun…
…nature provides a fallback of other yellows…
…to counter the grey….
I had no idea what the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool is, so I did a little online search and found out that there isn’t a scientific difference. However, in common parlance a mushroom is what’s edible and a toadstool is what’s poisonous.
I see mushrooms in my garden from time to time, but I had never seen one like this before…
I did a little online search, but haven’t yet been able to identify this yellow mushroom toadstool, growing on a block of wood from the trunk of the shower of gold tree (Cassia fistula) that fell down when Hurricane Sandy hit Jamaica. That was on October 24, 2012, almost 8 years ago. The blossoms of that shower of gold tree were, as the name suggests, a very bright yellow! This little toadstool is a paler shade…
The evening sky…look up…
something distinctly pink…
This was the view from my window one morning last week:
Then a plume of Sahara dust swept across the Atlantic into the Caribbean, not an uncommon event, but this was perhaps the worst in fifty years, they said.
And with the dust in the air, this was the view from my window on Wednesday morning. I could not see the hills!
That plume of Sahara dust has moved past us, here in Jamaica, though they say another will affect us in a few days time. But tonight, at sunset, I could see the hills again…against a salmon-coloured sky…
Chin up! Don’t look down! The view on the ground is not the celebrated view…perhaps for good reason…
But sometimes the downward glance reveals the beauty…
…of fallen things…
…of forgotten things…
…of broken things…
…of things past their prime….
I like taking photos of sunsets. A bit cliched, you suggest? Yes, probably. But I like taking photos of sunsets anyhow.
By the time I went up onto the roof yesterday, the sun had already set and what I was left with was the after-sunset sky… 
…which was rather beautiful…
I really do love taking photos of sunsets. Did I say that already?
This blooming Poinciana tree…
…Delonix regia…
…flamboyant fi true!
